Remains of vast buried cities are occasionally exposed by the shifting, searching storm winds of the desert, and many a modern Arab has cooked his frugal breakfast by splinters picked up from the bones of his ancestors.
It was night when we got to the Pyramids, and we concluded to camp with an Arab and his family at the base of the great Cheops until next morning, and then before sunrise scale its steep steps and lofty crest.
A few silver coins insured us a warm greeting from the "Arab family," who seemed to vie with each other in preparing a hot supper and clean couches.
They sang their desert songs until nearly midnight, the daughter Cleo playing on the harp with dextrous fingers, and throwing a soft soprano voice upon the air, like the tones of an angel, echoing over a bank of wild flowers.
Standing on the pinnacle of the Pyramid William again struck one of his theatrical attitudes, and with outstretched hands exclaimed:
Immortal Sol! Image of Omnipotence!
To thee lift I my soul in pure devotion;
Out of desert wilds, in golden splendor,
Rise and flash thy crimson face, eternal—
Across the wastes of shifting, century sands;
Again is mirrored in my sighing soul
The lofty temples and bastioned walls
Of Memphis, Balback, Nineveh, Babylon—
Gone from the earth like vapor from old Nile,
When thy noonday beams lick up its waters!
Hark! I hear again the vanished voices
Of lofty Memnon, where proud pagan priests
Syllable the matin hour, uttering
Prophecies from Jupiter and Apollo—
To devotees deluded, then as now,
By astronomical, selfish fakirs,
Who pretend claim to heavenly agency
And power over human souls divine.
Poor bamboozled man; know God never yet
Empowered any one of his truant tribe
To ride with a creed rod, image of Himself;
And thou, oh Sol, giver of light and heat,
Speed the hour when man, out of superstition
Shall leap into the light of pure reason,
Only believing in everlasting Truth!
In a short time we crossed the sands of the desert and interviewed the Sphynx, but with that battered, solemn countenance, wrinkled by the winds and sands of ages, those granite lips still refused to give up the secrets of its stony heart, or tell us the mysteries of buried antiquity.
We were soon again in the cabin of the Albion, sailing away to Athens, where we anchored for two days.
William and myself ran hourly risk of breaking our legs and necks among the classic ruins of Athenian genius, where Plato, Socrates, Aristotle, Sophocles, Euripides, Pericles, Alcibiades, Demosthenes, Zeno, Solon, Themestocles, Leonidas, Philip and Alexander had lived and loved in their glorious, imperishable careers.
We went on top of Mars Hill, and climbed to the top of the ruined Acropolis, disturbing a few lizards, spiders, bats, rooks and pigeons that made their homes where the eloquence of Greece once ruled the world.